I just did a quick search and looked up that amp and speakers.....WOW.Those are so wrong for a gym sound system!!I take it that is 4 amps and 8 speakers.

In addition to everything else that has been mentioned the first time one of those speakers gets nailed with a basketball the grill and maybe a driver will be caved in.

What else was quoted for a mixer, mics, processing, equipment rack, wall boxes or floor boxes for mic jacks.

I just replaced the mixer last year. We were using a 30 year old Peavey! I moved some of our older AT 3000 600 MHz mics to the gym. We still have some time left with those. When the mics break I will have to replace them totally. The bodypacks for those systems are brand new. Speakers and amps are the priority right now along with a permanent rack on the wall somewhere.

I have attached a quick simple layout of the gym. The bleachers go up to a height of about 5.5' and the stage area is 2' high. The ceiling peaks at 28' and goes to 20' on the sides along the bleacher wall and the opposite parallel wall. The center lines are the column centers.

I have attached a quick simple layout of the gym. The bleachers go up to a height of about 5.5' and the stage area is 2' high. The ceiling peaks at 28' and goes to 20' on the sides along the bleacher wall and the opposite parallel wall. The center lines are the column centers.

I had a thought about proposing a modular line array on either side of the stage area. Possibly 2 to 3 modules stacked. Build a insulated box with sound dampening materials. Then suspend the speakers from the roof that extents past the gym walls. Then put some sort of protective grill over the cutouts to keeps balls out. Then cap it off with a speaker mesh material.

I have uploaded some attachments that were sent to me. He's proposed a center cluster of Varia at 120 deg along with a left and right two Varia hang. Is this reasonable or could we use a more traditional point source speaker system. We are looking at around $40K for this system.

We are looking for new speakers for our gym. The only option that was given was to mount speakercraft cinema one profile aim speakers. There will be 6 of these in three pairs. Each pair I believe will be a stereo configuration. The gym is 100’x75’x28’. The whole goal in this was to get better speech reinforcement. The company that quoted this system specializes in Home theatres. These speakers will be place behind the stage when we do VBS. We use 5-6 mics at any one time during VBS. I personally think this system will be a disaster and isn’t going to work. Hanging speakers or speakers on a stand is not an option. I’ve already told them this is going to be a feedback nightmare and trying to overcome 500 screaming kids isn’t going to happen. And the cost for this system is a little over $7K!

I've had to go back to the drawing board on this system. I sat down and talked with my pastor about it. After having a great conversation I got a better feel for what he wants. We won't have the budget for an installed speaker system. I've been looking at a couple of affordable portable speaker options. Mainly the Bose F1 Model 812s and the Turbosound ip3000. Both setups seem to have enough SPL. We recently purchased a ip1000 for our junior church setup. I was actually very impressed with the setup. However I don't believe a pair of these will be able to handle the larger setup with running them too hard. That's where I came up with the idea to run a pair of F1 812s or ip3000s. I like the ip3000s for the cleaner install and price point. If you go with the F1 812's it's about $1200 more total if you add the subs.

Honestly I would take your budget and shop around for a few different integrators. You'll find one you like and they can suggest how to get the best system for the money you have.

Don't DIY this thing. It's not worth it, and you'll likely go over budget on things you didn't think about up front anyway....

I'm putting together a quote now. For what I want to install there isn't much too it. It's pretty much a portable system with a rack mounted on the wall instead of a rolling rack. There will be no amps or speaker wires. Just power and xlr cables running to the rack. For a really simple setup just roll the speaker out and plug a trusty SM 58 into it and go.

For the setup I want it's going to cost around $8500. That's either 2 ip3000s or 2 F1 812s; 6 Audio technia System 10 Pro mics, Power sequencer for equipment with remote outlets for speakers, 3 20 amp circuits, wall rack and cabling. We already have a simple rack mixer that will be used. I may add a Nexia later on down the road.

The system we have been running the last 14 years was hacked together from our old system from the old church. We use the system once a year for the full setup. The other times will be various events in the gym. For most of the other events running a single speaker with a wired mic would suffice.

To install a basic speaker setup would cost us between $14K-18K. They are not going to spend that much.

In the previous maps, the coverage was not even close to being "acceptable".

But it depends on what you are really looking for and what expectations you/the Church have.

In any sort of proper system design, coverage is usually first, with SPL second.

In nightclubs, usually SPL comes first, and as long as the coverage is good in the middle, they are fine.

But others want the same coverage/SPL everywhere.

It all comes down to defining the expectations of the system.

If you don't define them ahead of time, how do you know if the system has meet them?

If all you want is a "loud noise at some places", then pretty much any system can provide that. Most people want a bit more.

That is where DESIGN comes into play

I wouldn't disagree with anything you said. However the fact is we will need something this year. They are not going to spend anywhere near to have someone design and install a "proper" sound system. Let's remember also this is a once a year for a full week. We don't have regular services in the gym in that setup. Is the portable type setup the best scenario? No, but for the budget they want to spend it's I believe it's the best option. The problem with the system before was coverage and even front to back coverage. The front row was blasted out while the back was not great, but okay. We also had many functional issues due to being hacked together. I personally believe that with the advent of really good powered speakers has simplified things from the perspective of installation. Also many have a simple DSP that offers protection to the speaker. The portable column line array is a game changer as well. From testing the ip1000 we purchased the coverage seems to be really good and even side to side and front to back to about 60'. From the center of the proposed column speaker it will need to cover about 20' on each side of the speaker and about 50' back. For the larger setup I believe we will need the more powerful ip3000s due to the fact that our noise floor is about 75dB when all the kids are in the gym just seated. It can get as high as 90dB during rally time.

You've mentioned one week a year where everything will get used. Will the system sit in storage the rest of the time, or will bits of it come out for smaller events?If it was mine, I'd take a good look at buying something small for day-to-day use, and the one week per year where you need something bigger, see what rental options there are.